Letters to the Editor

At 9:15 a.m. on March 31, 2014, a man was shoveling snow at St. Peters United Methodist Church in Emerald, Pennsylvania. He was found by a neighbor lying in a pool of blood and rushed to the Lehigh Valley Hospital in critical condition.

We, his parents, were in contact with many churches in the Lehigh Valley to put him on their prayer lists. We were told that his prayer request was prayed around the world. How thankful we were to be told that.

With the challenges to the economy and a lack of sustainable job growth, why not have a number of bright entrepreneurs create a business plan to transport young children from the United States to Central America to provide those children with the opportunity to travel through Mexico and into Texas for the long-term benefit of having the United States provide free medical care, education, housing and even opportunities for free or reduced college educations?

I have a comment on your column about the fatal crash involving the Nesquehoning police officer.

I'm a retired 28-year veteran of the San Diego Police Department. My career spanned parts of four decades, from the mid-'60s through the mid-'90s, and 10 of those years were spent in the traffic division as a supervisor of accident investigation/reconstruction specialists.

No! It's not the invasion of some extraterrestrials from another planet, it's right here on earth.

As you may already know, and I will use the words here as illegals, refugees and foreign nationals are still crossing our borders.

The number, as reported as of April 2014, may be hundreds of thousands who have entered the country already. Some are fleeing from oppression and other reasons. Some that have crossed the border could be terrorists.

I keep reading in the newspapers about the Slatington 150th Birthday Celebration.

Well, Jon Rinker wants to screen floats, bands and participants in the parade. Yet, the borough council, Rinker included, does nothing to clean up the town. The town looks like a war zone!

Empty buildings, dilapidated porches on Main Street. The borough hangs banners in Slatington that read, "Historical District." The banners should read "Hysterical District," as I laugh every time I walk on Main Street.

Why is it that every time something goes wrong in Lansford, or someone from Lansford gets arrested or does something dumb, the caption of the article always reads "Lansford Man, women, problem, etc. ..."

I know other towns have their share of problems, and I know residents of other towns get arrested.

It seems to me that the Times News is glorifying the fact that Lansford has problems. Enough is enough. We're not all bad, and believe it or not, many of us are productive citizens.

First, I would like to thank Sen. John Yudichak and his staff for their tireless assistance in helping Summit Hill borough council in adopting a noise ordinance that would allow us to assert local control on an issue that should be local in the first place: noise in our restaurants and bars.

I have lived in this area for what seems to me like an eternity. I do consider myself a local, although I do not speak Dutch, but I wish I did. But overall, I respect the Founding Fathers that are and respect all their efforts.

With that said, I never, ever thought over all the years that I would see the influx of visitors to this area as I have seen over the past years. Much to my chagrin, all is not as good as the folks that supply food and drink make it out to be.

Today they are celebrating Memorial Day with the usual parade in Summit Hill. This is the first time I didn't get to go. Maybe it will be on TV. I spent the time sitting on my patio with my dog, Porkey. I had a chance to read the Times News paper (I mean really read it). There was so much to read and enjoy. Pages I never read before really were very informing and entertaining.

Then I was thinking, Memorial Day only comes once a year. Go up to Summit Hill and visit the graves. I was glad I went up. The cemetery was beautiful.

I have never been at a school board meeting until recently. I can now understand why nobody attends these meetings.

I attended because I wanted answers as to why the Panther Valley School Board was outsourcing the janitors' jobs, and also why our taxes are so high and keep going up. Also, why there weren't any administrative cuts.